A friend recommended a free gig by The Mouletts at Dartington in Devon last night. I am really glad I went.

The band were missing a member but that did not stop them putting on a fantastic show. The music defies pigeonholing but its progressive with a small p and unusual instrumentation. Bassoon, electric cello, autoharp all feature prominently together with excellent vocal harmonies.

The music covers a huge range from gentle acoustic to stomping Prog.

This track came over very well, very proggy (distant hints of Gentle Giant?)
https://m.youtube.com/wat...p;v=bZTibl44hNg&a=

Well, seems I was well on the mark with Gentle Giant, they are mentioned as an infulence on the CD sleeve.
 
People seem to want to classify them as "folk". (Its got acoustic instruments and vocal harmonies, must be Folk! )
 
Here is another very different track, which is more "folky" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM3KYWCx99E
 
 

Yes, very GG, shades of 'I Lost My Head' in the first track you linked. Is that Raevannen Husbandes on guitar and vocals? Looks like her. I like 'em, thanks Glyn.
 
Edit: Yes it is her. She co-wrote a song with my friend Tim a few years ago.

jamesg1213
Yes, very GG, shades of 'I Lost My Head' in the first track you linked. Is that Raevannen Husbandes on guitar and vocals? Looks like her. I like 'em, thanks Glyn.
 
Edit: Yes it is her. She co-wrote a song with my friend Tim a few years ago.

She, unfortunately, was the missing member. They had a stand in guitarist and a German guy who's name I have forgotten guesting on lap steel.

Very busy time for me until after I've moved, but I like that you guys are still finding new stuff for me to listen to! 

craigb
Very busy time for me until after I've moved, but I like that you guys are still finding new stuff for me to listen to! 

Good luck with the move, I certainly don't envy you the stress that is bound to cause.
 
As an aside to the OP Dartington Hall is a teriffic place for a concert. The hall itself dates back to 1400 and retains the ancient atmosphere and hosts all sorts of events.
 
The International Summer School season is starting on the estate with music students decending from all over. There are a lot of events planned.
 
Dartington College of Arts is no more, but as a spotty engineering student oik I visited once and actually got to turn a few knobs on a Moog Modular and watch the art students play with huge tape loops strung around microphone stands. It seemed more exciting than applied maths and construction technology.

craigb
Very busy time for me until after I've moved, but I like that you guys are still finding new stuff for me to listen to! 

I've bookmarked this page for the next 'Why Isn't There Any Good Music Anymore' thread by an old codger-who-hasn't-listened-to-anything-new-in-decades.

You talkin' 'bout me, Willis?

I came across this blog post by David Meadows via a discussion on Twitter debating if the Mouletts were "Prog" or not, in the end the band tweeted thay would not shy away from the lable.
 
I said in the OP it’s progressive with a small p (IMHO). Genre definitions can get tiresome and i would not even want to get into the labyrinth of "Prog" sub genres I have seen discussed in some quarters.
 
I noticed his comment.

The audience does freak me out, incidentally. It's so ... young! Most of the bands I see are ancient bands who attract equally ancient audiences. Even the new, young bands I see play the type of music that attracts (let's not beat about the bush) middle-aged men. The weird thing is, so too do the Moulettes. Any of the prog-loving audiences I'm normally in should be eating up this music, and yet those audiences don't seem to have found them, so the Moulettes are playing to predominantly [drops voice to a horrified whisper] young people! Which is great ... but ... weird.

 
 

Glyn Barnes
I said in the OP it’s progressive with a small p (IMHO). Genre definitions can get tiresome and i would not even want to get into the labyrinth of "Prog" sub genres I have seen discussed in some quarters.

 
I remember when I first started to prepare to import all of my music into a new media player (MediaMonkey - highly recommended! http://www.mediamonkey.com/ ).  Now I have over 300,000 songs from about three dozen "major" genres (e.g., "Rock" or "Jazz" not "Pop-Rock," "Hard Rock" or "Fusion Jazz").  Whatever people think about classifying music, I really don't want my Classical tracks mixing with my Metal or Trance.  So I did some research which turned into a MUCH larger effort!  I ended up with spreadsheets tracking origins and derivative forms as well as types (like date based ("The 60's"), location based ("Canterbury Scene," "garage," "Krautrock"), before, after or emerging ("pre," "post" or "proto"), weight ("light," "heavy"), density ("hard," "soft"), updated ("future," "modern," "contemporary," "new," "neo," "nu"), how accessible it is ("abstract," Avant-Garde," "art," "experimental," "pop"), presentation style ("vocal," "instrumental," "acapella," "guitar virtuoso," "synth," "symphonic," "arena," "acoustic," "electric") as well as all the cultural, religious and just plain stupid types.  Over 1,400 genres and subgenres (sometimes called "styles").
 
It wasn't long before I realized that there were some general patterns, but a lot of ambiguity as well as some questionable parentage!  (With some people putting the "child" above or equal to the parent!)
 
I also realized that, as large as my collection is, I only needed to classify what actually needed differentiating in my collection (so I don't have any subgenres for Rap for example, heck, I'm not even sure if I have more than a couple of albums I bought out of curiosity).  So what I finally did was to create a couple dozen main genres then I put all of the styles and subgenres I find for a particular artist into a separate field so I can create custom playlists later.
 
Note that I've only broken things down by artist, but once I finally have everything imported I intend to go back while listening and revise albums as needed (since we all know artists that do something different like a holiday album, etc.).
 
Damn!  I just noticed that I forgot to start this reply with "Hi," - LOL!